


Legos

by ifwednesdaywasaflowerchild



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Future Fic, Post-Season/Series 03, mentions of all characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 21:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20396080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifwednesdaywasaflowerchild/pseuds/ifwednesdaywasaflowerchild
Summary: Set fifteen years after the events of season three, a peek into the lives of our favorite characters told through the lens of a quiet night at the home of Jonathan and Nancy Byers, along with their son. It'd taken them a decade and a half, but brick by tiny brick, they'd rebuilt, and found something to make life worth it.





	Legos

  
The year is 1999 and Jonathan Byers has decided that Legos must die in a blazing inferno fueled by the silent rage of every parent unfortunate enough to find that missing piece with their bare foot. He's become well acquainted with every known curse in the English language, muttered it under his breath, because his little man is obsessed with the colorful blocks.

Like, now.

When he's coming downstairs after a shower (Indiana summers were brutal) and his foot finds a small lego brick, he hadn't noticed when he went up the stairs.

"Ouch! Dammit!" he hops on one foot, barely holding onto his camera with one hand while the other seeks out the bright assailant. He hobbles into the kitchen, offending object in hand. "Nance, when did he get so many of these damn things?"

The plastic piece skitters across the kitchen table, it's red hue barely dulled by the orange kitchen lights and Nancy giggles at the matching flush on her husband's face, pain and intense loathing heating his face to a deep red. "Since, Steve decided to be uncle extraordinaire and spoil him rotten."  
Jonathan softens.

Oh, sure, in high school, he might have beat Steve Harrington to a bloodied pulp, and not regretted it, but the popular flake known for his hair as much as his bad attitude, had come along way with the help of Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Max. He'd taken Max under his wing after the loss of her step-brother, Billy Hargrove, and set the kid on a better path than he'd set for himself.

He'd changed and Jonathan couldn't begrudge Steve being in love with Nancy Wheeler - after all, he was, and still is, in love with her. The only difference is who Nancy chose. She could be Nancy Harrington, instead, she chose the steadfast Jonathan and took his last name, the day after they graduated college.

"He's been looking for that piece," Nancy explains, lifting a heaping spoonful of cubed potatoes into a pan, spreading them around the seasoned chicken waiting to go in a hot oven. "His firetruck isn't red enough without it."

"It's - " Jonathan opens his mouth but closes it when Nancy raises an eyebrow at him. Little Kevin is only three years old and has as vivid an imagination as his namesake. "Okay. I'll go give the little guy the missing piece to his firetruck. How does he know how to build a firetruck?"

"You'd have to ask our brothers." Nancy laughs, "I had to go get stuff for dinner while they were here. When I got back with groceries, he was pretending to be a firefighter, and was pushing it all over the carpet while Will and Mike told the tale of what a hero he was."

Jonathan just laughs; sounds about right for his brother. He was just glad the three years of trauma they'd endured hadn't taken too much of his imagination and his brother had become a celebrated artist, known for using unique media, with exhibits around the world. Jonathan's photo-journalist job had given him the connections and the resume to do several page spreads on his brother's work.

"Jane...I mean, El says Will's imagination is still a work in progress," Nancy says softly when Jonathan's arms come around her waist, his chin coming to rest on her shoulder to watch her prepare dinner. "But, they're working on restoring it. The art helps but the mind flayer, it did things. She's still not sure some of the damage will ever be reversible, even fifteen years later. There's still a part of his brain that...she describes it like a heart beating out of rhythm. It knows what it's supposed to be doing but it can't keep up. She thinks his art might a result of his brain trying to get back in sync."

"That would explain why he used jagged lines in his last piece," Jonathan dips his face into the soft fabric of her t-shirt, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. "Anything else?"

"Dustin's goin' to visit Steve and Max." Nancy relays the message given to her by her brother. "They like New York and Max is a junior partner at a law firm up there. She specializes in family court cases. She wants to prevent situations like Neil and Billy."

Jonathan goes quiet after that.

Having an asshole of a father, himself, he knows a little about what Billy must have gone through. It wasn't until Billy's death, that Neil's long history of abuse emerged, and the fear that he'd turn on Max, if he saw her as responsible for Billy's death (which was likely) had sent Hopper over to the Mayfield-Hargrove house to discuss some things. Nobody questioned why Neil limped up until the day he died.

But, Steve had slid in, spiked bat over one shoulder, and a handful of quarters in the other hand, offering Max a lift to the arcade and the beginning of a friendship had formed.

They'd been inseparable, ever since.

"That's good. I'm glad Max has someone." Jonathan murmurs. "I had an asshole for a father. I didn't know what having a father meant until Hop. That look on his face at our college graduation...he looked like a father should."

"He was proud of you, Jonathan." Nancy tells him softly, pushing her hips back. "Now give me a second. I have to put these in the oven or we'll never eat."

She puts the pan with the chicken and vegetables in the oven, wipes her hands on a tea towel, and turns to look at her husband. She loops her arms around his neck and presses close to him. "I'm proud of you - of us. We've come a long way. Maybe, we'll never be the way we were, but we're still pretty bad-ass."

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" Jonathan teases softly. Nancy rarely swears, unlike him. She's tried to rub off on him, and for the most part, he bites his tongue around their little boy but when they're alone, he swears a little.

"No." a shake of her curls. "I kiss my husband."

"He must like the taste." Jonathan growls.

"He must." Nancy sings, eyes twinkling. "He's had years to acquire it."

Jonathan can't help but laugh at that. She is hardly an acquired taste, but she is his taste, and he thinks he'll keep her. "You're just lucky I like girls who can kick my ass."

Nancy raises an eyebrow at her husband but strings open-mouthed kisses along his jaw, giggling at the sudden tightness in his hold, and the way his breath catches ever so slightly. "We have an hour before dinner, our little man is probably napping after his grand adventures, earlier. What do you say we recreate the night we dropped the bullshit?"

"A night like that could lead to another Kev - we shouldn't." Jonathan breathes, despite his body's intense betrayal.

"The pull-out worked before." Nancy giggles, sinking deeper into him. "But, I did buy condoms."

"You're relentless, you know that?" Jonathan drops his head to her shoulder, happy to just breathe her in.

"Only when I know I'm right." Nancy slips her hand into the hair at the nape of his neck, damp strands curling around her fingers, despite being blunt and straight when dry.

"Which is always."

Nancy giggles, freeing herself from him, and prancing toward the stairs, slipping buttons through the holes in her blouse. She leaves dinner in the oven and a trail of clothes for him to follow. A quick peek reveals little Kevin Byers sleeping soundly on his bed, Lego firetruck firmly clenched in his fist.

The thought occurs to Jonathan that, he could get used to that, and he's probably going to miss it when Kevin outgrows this stage of life. When he's rushing off to school and the legos are traded for books and pages of homework and when that gets traded for a ring and a girl.

Huh.

Maybe, it's time to ditch the pull-out.


End file.
